


Always

by TheBigLoserQueen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Dreams, Mentioned violence, Mild slash, Multi, mentioned death, snarry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:19:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1734227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBigLoserQueen/pseuds/TheBigLoserQueen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry has a dream... But this one is all too real and much different than his other ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Always

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SABATHco](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SABATHco/gifts).



> This is actually a gift for someone on dA... I'm actually not a Snarry fan, but he is, so I wrote this for him for his birthday since I knew he liked the pairing. Hope you guys like it too, lol.

It was the same dream he had every other night. He was in a room, a dark long room with one small window at the opposite end of where he was standing. The moon was full and the light was shining down on a single black figure, creating a silhouette of the person against the wall. 

Harry had been having this dream for the past three years now. One would think the Battle of Hogwarts would cause him to have PTSD-like dreams, which he had from time to time, but they had been fading over the years.

This dream though? It didn’t seem that it would ever go away. 

It was a simple dream. He would open his eyes to find himself in this little dark room with the figure on the other side. The figure was never the same person when he approached it. Sometimes it was Dumbledore. Sometimes it was his mother. His father. Sirius. Moody. Remus. Fred… The list seemed endless. But it was never the same person twice. But all of them were part of those who died protecting him, protecting others because of him…

Perhaps it was guilt that made him continuously see these people in his dream. The deaths he somehow had a hand in just because he existed. In a way, they all died trying to protect him… But they were never resentful or hateful in his dreams. They never insulted him or cursed him. They simply… talked in his dreams. 

Honestly, Harry wasn’t sure if this was a dream or something else. It just seemed so… real. Much like with the Resurrection Stone and that strange limbo stage he had been in with Dumbledore when Voldemort had used the killing curse on him. It seemed like a dream, and yet… it was just so real.

Harry took a deep breath and stepped toward the figure slowly. He wondered who he would see this time. From the shape of the silhouette, he could judge that the figure was a male. He remembered the last time he had this dream, it was his father standing there. If it wasn’t his father this time… perhaps Sirius? Remus? He wasn’t too sure. 

He continued to walk forward, seeing the figure had his back turned to him as he looked up at the moon. It bothered Harry a bit that he couldn’t see this man’s face. Normally, his “visitor” would be looking right at him, usually with a gentle expression. This time… he wasn’t looking, which made Harry a bit anxious about who this man was.

Once he was closer into the light, the figure turned to face him and caused Harry to freeze. His mouth fell slightly open, his eyes widening at this “visitor.” At first, he didn’t understand. He had never appeared in these dreams before. Not once, even though a part of him had always wished for him to do so. His feelings for him were still mixed, understanding some things but not others…

“Potter,” he said, not sneering as he once had in his younger Hogwarts years. There was still a tone to it though, one that Harry wasn’t sure what to think of. He just stared at him, mouth opening and closing as he tried to think of what to say. 

He just stared at him, mouth falling agape. It was him. It was really him… Harry swallowed, something swelling in his chest. He couldn’t say what it was. It was a mix of things. Relief, bitterness, confusion, happiness, anger…

He could never really understand his feelings towards this professor. He had… hated him for so long. Especially for what he did to Dumbledore and yet… Yet, later, he found out it was all to protect him. The child of a man he hated and woman he loved. And still did, even in death. 

“You… Why are you-”

“I don’t know. This is your mind, not mine. Of course… Unless you still fail to learn anything I taught you during those Occlumency lessons we went through during your fifth year.”

Harry still said nothing, opening and closing his mouth. His hands balled up into fists, swallowing back his words. There was so much he wanted to say, so much he wanted to ask… Why couldn’t he just tell him? Why didn’t he let him understand? Even just a little? Why was he kept in the dark from all of this…?

He would have tried to understand his actions. He wouldn’t have damned him, cursed him as much as he had before he learned the truth. Now… Even now, he still had mixed feelings for a man he had hated, for a man who died protecting him…

“You should have told me from the beginning,” he blurted out.

Snape said nothing. 

“You should have said you… you were doing all of it… everything… for me. For my mother.” When Snape still remained silent, his temper and emotions flared up. How could he just stand there?! Why wouldn’t he say anything?! “All that time…! I thought you hated me… I thought you to be evil! Why did you never tell me the truth?!”

“Would you have even believed me?” Snape asked, his voice calm as he stared down at the younger man. When Harry remained silent, he nodded. “No. You wouldn’t have. Because your father and his friends didn’t believe me to be anyone good and you trusted saw them as the good ones… I was not one of them.”

“But… my mum-”

“How would you know what she thought of me?” he said, his voice much harsher than before at the mention of the beloved woman. “You never would have known what she felt for me… Her feelings about me weren’t known by your father’s friends. I was the outcast, the freak… And I’m certain I still am in their hearts.” 

Harry said nothing, looking down at his feet. Snape was right. He would not have known. And he would not have listened either. He would have thought Snape to be lying and he would have only believed the truth had he heard it from someone he trusted. 

“And that was why you were cruel to me,” Harry finally said, finding his voice as he looked down at his feet. “Because… Because of my father… his friends…”

It was still hard for him to accept. That his father and Sirius and Remus, all who he admired and loved, had been… heartless tormenters to the man standing before him. They had been cruel, ruthless, harsh… Nothing like how they had been when they grew up. But they had just been kids! Stupid brats… 

Still, that didn’t excuse their actions. 

“As I said before…” Harry looked up, seeing Snape just stare down at him. “Your father was swine.”

“Did… Does that make me swine as well?”

Snape said nothing, looking outside once more. 

Harry was trembling slightly. Damn it, he hated how Snape kept things from him. Why would he never say the truth to him?! Yes, he knew this was a dream, but… Surely this “dream” Snape would at least say _something_. Anything at all would have sufficed.  

“I hated you for so long… I blamed you for so much… And yet… everything was to protect me… Me… Her son!” He stormed forward and screamed, “Why couldn’t you just tell me?! Why did you keep me in the dark?! I would have tried…! I would have tried to understand…! I am my father’s son, yes, but I am also my mother’s child too!”

Snape finally turned. “I know who you are, Potter… I’ve always known who you are.”

Harry said nothing, hands and body shaking as his breath was uneven and hard.

“You are arrogant. Spiteful. A show-off. Just like your father.” 

He stepped toward the younger man, who was obviously getting angrier and angrier as he had just insulted his father. That temper had never changed, not even as an adult.  

“You tend to act before you think. You have no respect for your elders. You’re reckless and juvenile.” 

Harry gritted his teeth, hands balling up into fists. He knew Snape was referring to James more so than him. And, in a way, Snape had every right to dislike him. But James was still his father… He didn’t want to stand here and say nothing against him.

“You may have hated my father, but he was a great man to me,” he growled, through gritted teeth.

“And you both have the irritating ability to interrupt others.” Snape stepped in front of him and looked down as Harry’s eyes narrowed up at him, the boy shaking in anger. But all the man could focus on was his eyes… Just like his mother. 

Harry froze when Snape touched his cheek. He had not realized that he had been so frustrated that tears were trickling down his face. He blinked and took a step back, reaching up to wipe away his tears. 

Snape gave a small breath. “You’re a grown man and still you shed tears…”

“Tears aren’t just for children,” Harry muttered bitterly, wiping away the remaining teardrops. “That was the last thing I remembered from you.”

His formers professor did not respond to that. 

To this day, Harry wasn’t sure why he had cried. Had he forced himself to cry? Was he just in so much pain? Was it because he knew he was dying? Was it because the last thing he saw was him, the painful reminder of how his beloved friend and woman was taken from him by a man he hated? Or was it because it was simply because it was him, a boy he had hurt and protected?

He had hoped that it was for the latter reason, but he could never be sure. He could just have himself convinced that Snape, in own his way, loved him. 

“You’re a grown man now – you should behave as such.”

Harry looked up, slightly surprised to see a rather gently expression on the man’s face. “Professor-”

“I am not your professor anymore.”

“Sn-Snape…”

The man shook his head.

“… Severus,” he murmured softly, his bottom lip trembling slightly.

Severus nodded, looking up at the moon again. Harry looked too, freezing up when he saw it was getting brighter. No… No! That meant his dream was ending… He was waking up! No! There was so much more he wanted to say, to ask, even if it was just a dream!

“Severus,” he said, grabbing onto his arms. He held onto them like a lifeline, as if holding on meant he wouldn’t wake up, that he would be able to stay with him. “Severus, please.”

“You have to wake up.”

“No, no Severus, I need to know!” The light was becoming blinding at this point and he struggled to see the other’s face. “Did you hate me? Love me? Simply care because I was her son?! What was it?!”

“I only cared at first because you were her son.”

“You’d go so far for that?!”

“Feelings change.”

“Then did you love me?! Did you?!” He fought to stay asleep. Everything was becoming blinding white and he could barely make out the older man’s face. He just wanted him to answer this, at the very least this! God, if only just a soft murmur or even a bit of an answer…

As just as Severus’s face began to fade out, he could only recall something equivalent to a soft smirk gracing his face as he muttered softly, “Always.”

XXX

Harry opened his eyes, blinking a few times. The sun was just starting to rise as he looked over at the window, seeing rays of light come in. He glanced at his clock, seeing that it read 6:45 in the morning.  

Another dream. But this time about Sn… About Severus. He sat up in his bed and ran his hands through his hair. He hated those dreams sometimes. It could have just been his subconscious trying to reassure or mess with him, but… This was a magical world. Anything was possible. 

He let his hands drop to the mattress, curling his hands into fists. “Severus…” he muttered softly as he closed his eyes. He said that he had loved him… and not simply because he was Lily son’s. He didn’t think he would ever truly understand Severus’s feelings for him – or even his own feelings for the man – no matter how many times the man appeared in his dreams. 

Harry only gave a soft laugh and shook his head, muttering out softly, sadly, “Maybe I always loved you too.”


End file.
